Protecting Your Water

Coastal Watersheds
- This series of factsheets about Coastal Watersheds is now available
online, featuring information about beaches, nearshore waters, coral reefs,
and estuaries, and include tips on how residents can help protect the
coastal watershed where they live.

RCRA
Expanded Public Participation Rule - One of the key principles
identified as essential to "reinventing government" and to improving the
way EPA does business is the need to improve and expand opportunities
for public participation in our decision-making processes. The RCRA Expanded
Public Participation Rule promotes partnership, empowerment, and flexibility
in the RCRA permitting program. En
español

Waste
Not/Want Not: A Guide for Feeding the Hungry Through Food Recovery
- Explains how any state or municipality, as well as any private business
that deals with food, can reduce its solid waste by facilitating the donation
of wholesome surplus food according to the food hierarchy. Also lists
ways you can join the growing food recovery movement, and provides a framework
to help you protect the environment while making a difference in the daily
lives and futures of hungry families across our nation.

Community-Based Environmental Protection Efforts

Smart Growth - Smart
growth is development that serves the economy, the community, and the
environment. It changes the terms of the development debate away from
the traditional growth/no growth question to "how and where should
new development be accommodated."

Green Communities -
Green Communities are "sustainable communities": communities that integrate
a healthy environment, a vibrant economy, and a high quality of life.
This Web site provides information on how to make your community a green
one.

Tips and Tools

Planning
Environmentally Aware Events - This guide outlines the key
steps in planning and conducting an environmentally aware event, profiles
a variety of meetings and events, and provides a checklist that can be
used as a planning tool.

Find Stewardship Opportunities - Every person has the chance to make a difference by practicing environmental stewardship. Look for opportunities at home, at school, at work, in your community, and while shopping and traveling. The possibilities are endless, and the cumulative impacts of individual actions can really add up.

Search Your ZIP Code - Get information about pollution emissions or releases and related information where you live.

The Great Outdoors - Stay safe and help protect the environment, just outside your door or across the country on vacation.

Volunteers displaying the treasures they found cleaning up Wethersfield Cove in Connecticut. Over 2,000 people collected more than 50 tons of trash at Wethersfield Cove and 59 other locations in four states, as part of the 11th Annual Connecticut River Watershed Council Source to Sea Cleanup.